Current mood:	amused
Entry tags:	feminism

Dear Andrea Dworkin: Piss Off
I'm too old to still be working stuff like this out, I'm sure I am. Most of you know I don't hold no truck with them feminists. There's a lot about 'mainstream' feminism that I find more about proscription than liberation, a list of things you shouldn't do if you're a 'proper' woman. The attitude that if you like particular things or behave in a particular way you've been brainwashed.

Welcome to the Feminist Sex Carnival. I went to Amber Rhea's and read and read and read. Sometimes I cried, because it was the first time I'd ever seen somebody else saying something I thought, this particular something.

Anyone who sees female sexuality only in context of how men respond to it, as if it had no existence outside that context, is - intentionally or unintentionally - reinforcing the “women as sex class” paradigm, not subverting it. Seeing any feminist action only in context of its effect on men undermines its feminism by implying that what doesn’t affect men isn’t important.

And, y’know, sex isn’t an invention of Teh Ev0l Patriarchy; it’s just the way human reproduction works. A case can be made, however (historically simplistic, but more logically consistent) , that the stigmatization of sex as dirty, impure, and uncivilized (a stigmatization reinforced by that breed of feminist’s distaste for overt sexuality) is a patriarchal construct.

That’s not a reason to negate sexuality in the name of feminism, it’s a reason to celebrate it.

 

Turns out I'm a Sex-Positive Feminist. Now, I've seen people refer to this disparagingly as 'bikini feminism', to which I can only say: dude, you're the one prescribing how women should dress. I'm the one who thinks feminism should be about freeing women to make their own choices - even if that means wearing tiny skirts, getting pissed, and having casual sex. And no, that doesn't bloody well mean they're 'behaving like men'. That statement prescribes appropriate behaviour for both men and women that does neither gender any favours.

Don't call me brainwashed, Dworkin Devotee: you're the one living your life by something you read in a book. I like porn because I like porn, not because I think I should. Women are, in fact, supposed to NOT like porn. If raunch culture is conformist, how come it's HARDER to stand up and say, I like sex, I like porn, I like MEN, than it is to not?

I wanna do a deal with the mainstream fems, the unifems. We'll get started on correcting men's behaviour to women right after you manage to stop all women using the phrase 'what the hell is she wearing'.